TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Racetrack Memory

This is the enabling technology for instant access to the media universe. The overhead just disappeared. Tomorrow all content will be available on demand. No longer will you wait for the computer to boot up and load all those pieces of software you never use, but you will not wait to access entertainment. It will just be there the moment you decide.

Goodbye hard drive. I subconsciously never forget that the hard drive spins and will wear out. They do die and it is always a disaster.

We are also good for another round of shrinkage in computer size as yet less power is needed. In fact at about the same time we should be able to build it all around a small battery pack and be good for months.

This technology will be available inside about five years. Plan your hardware buys accordingly. You never want top own the last VCR ever made.

Tired of waiting for your computer to boot up? Within five to seven years, you may no longer have to. That’s the estimated amount of time it will take to bring Racetrack Memory to market. Racetrack is a proposed new shock-proof system that is said to be 100,000 times faster than current hard drives, while also being 300 times more energy-efficient. Although it incorporates cutting-edge nanotechnology, it’s based on the same principles as the humble VHS videotape.

IBM has been working on developing Racetrack Memory for a couple of years, after Stuart Parkin of IBM’s AlmadenResearchCenter came up with the concept of spintroncs-based memory that has no moving parts, but in which the information moves. Prof. Mathias Kläui of Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) decided to pursue it after he got tired of waiting the two to three minutes for his computer to boot up.

Like a videocassette, Racetrack Memory would store data magnetically. Instead of on a moving tape, however, it would be stored on a tiny unmoving nickel-iron nanowire. The bits of information, which are stored in the wire using the spin of electrons rather than an electronic charge, would be moved around at several hundred meters per second, using a spin polarized current. Adjacent bits would be delineated from one another via domain walls with magnetic vortices.

EPFL says that accessing one of these nanowires would be like reading an entire VHS tape in less than a second, and the plan is for millions or even billions of these wires to be embedded on one chip. Perhaps you start to get the idea of just how speedy this thing could be. Kläui says that, not only would Racetrack Memory-equipped computers boot up instantly, they could also access information 100,000 times more rapidly than a traditional HDD. Additionally, because there are no moving parts, there is nothing to wear out, and unlike flash SSDs, it can be rewritten to endlessly.

Because traditional hard drive-based RAM needs to be powered every millionth of a second, says EPFL, a computer can consume up to 300mW of electricity just sitting idle. An idle Racetrack-equipped computer, on the other hand, would reportedly use just a few miliwatts. According to a 2010 study conducted by SBI Energy, computers and other electronics are currently estimated to consume approximately six percent of the world’s electricity, with that number forecast to increase to 15 percent by 2025. So this is no small consideration.

There are hurdles to be overcome before we start seeing Ractrack Memory appearing in consumer devices, however. Experiments by researchers at theUniversity of Hamburg showed that microscopic imperfections in the crystal structure of the wires, which led to the magnetic domains becoming “stuck,” resulted in performance roughly equal to traditional HDDs. If these and other problems can be overcome, we can look forward to instant-on computers that are ready to go when we are.

1 comment:

Dear friend,I’ve been looking through your blog over the past few days and I found your blog http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/ to be very informative and highly classical for all young generations. I was able to find everything I need from your blog from this links in this site as well as by following external links from this website. I can see you have a list of useful sites useful both for your users as well as end users who visit http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/ I have a blog with useful information to young generation.URL: http://internationalspacemission.blogspot.com/It would be great, if you could spare a few minutes visiting my blog. If you find my blog to be informative, it would be nice if you could provide us a link. So if you could provide me a link to my blog, it will be much more useful for user and young school and college peoples.It would be great pleasure if you can add this link http://internationalspacemission.blogspot.com/ in your blog http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/ so that it can benefit our visitors.And I also added your link http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/ in My Friend's Blogroll section. Please check it. If any changes has to be made please mail me.Hope you would add my blog in your blog.Please respond to me if you want me to do any correction.Waiting for your reply.RegardsStanley

About Me

Apr 2017 - 4.1 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO rigorously described, September 2010 I am pleased to report that my essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS' has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) and appeared in their June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in relativity,as well as differential geometry(pure math) and of course analysis. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift&. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data and record impressions and interpretations on material read. Do join my blog and receive Four items of interest daily Monday through Saturday.